Syria's top diplomat and long-time foreign minister Walid al-Moalem, died on Monday, the government said.
There were no details on the cause of death, but the 79-year old had been in poor health for years with heart problems. A source close to the (...)
Lebanese Security Chief Abbas Ibrahim visited Damascus after a trip to Washington as part of efforts to free U.S. citizen Austin Tice, who is thought to be held in Syria, Lebanese broadcaster al Jadid reported on Saturday.
Ibrahim told al Jadid he (...)
Syrian President Bashar al Assad on Wednesday blamed US sanctions and pressure on the United Nations and Syria's neighbours for the reticence of more than 5 million refugees who fled the conflict there to return.
"There are many hurdles," Assad (...)
Syrian President Bashar Assad on Thursday met with a high-level Russian delegation advocating for jointly hosting an international conference on refugees in the capital Damascus next month.
Western nations and many of the more than 5.6 million (...)
The United States and several Western allies on Tuesday accused the Syrian government of deliberately delaying the drafting of a new constitution to waste time until presidential elections in 2021, and avoid U.N.-supervised voting as called for by (...)
Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad has proclaimed that the Syrian people “do not want to change the constitution” and that “it is not a priority.” He has said that the Syrians “only want amendments that impact their daily lives” and has described (...)
English crime writer Agatha Christie was an occasional and always appreciative visitor to Egypt. Her first visit took place before the First World War when as the daughter of a wealthy upper-middle class family she spent three months attending balls (...)
Oman has sent an ambassador to Syria, becoming the first Gulf Arab state to do so after they downgraded or shut missions in Damascus in 2012 over attacks by the government there on protests at the start of what turned into a war.
Oman is one of the (...)
“Mr Macron, you're going to have problems with me personally,” warned Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan two weeks ago after the French president advised European leaders to be “clear and firm, not with Turkey as a nation and people, but with (...)
After the last Russo-Turkish agreement on arrangements in Idlib and northeastern Syria, extremist organisations, especially those affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS) group, began to escalate attacks against Turkish and Russian (...)
The leader and co-founder of Tunisia's moderate Islamist Ennahda Movement, Rachid Al-Ghannouchi, has come under pressure from prominent members of his party to step down and not obstruct the rotation of power.
The move by 100 figures in Ennahda came (...)
The Netherlands is preparing a case against Syria at the U.N.'s highest court, seeking to hold the government of President Bashar al-Assad accountable for human rights violations, including torture and the use of chemical weapons, the Dutch foreign (...)
Israeli warplanes fired missiles on suburbs of the northern city of Aleppo early Friday, Syrian state media said, amid increased airstrikes on Syria in recent weeks. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
On Aug. 31, an attack targeted the (...)
Some five months have passed since the US began to enforce further economic sanctions against the Syrian regime and several of its leading figures through the Caesar Act signed by US President Donald Trump in December 2019.
The legislation put in (...)
President Bashar al Assad said on Monday he wanted to expand business ties with Russia to help Damascus cope with new U.S. sanctions on Syria's already crippled economy that threaten to undermine military gains achieved with Moscow's help.
Assad, (...)
Many, perhaps most, societies have tended to hold medical practitioners in awe, sometimes hoping against hope, given their historically often-limited scientific knowledge, that the right doctor called at the right time can restore health to a (...)
The son of Lebanon's slain former premier Rafik al-Hariri vowed he would not rest until the killers are punished after a U.N.-backed court on Tuesday convicted a member of the Iran-backed Hezbollah group of involvement in the 2005 assassination.
In (...)
The repercussions of the announced UAE-Israeli peace agreement will ricochet throughout all the current crises in the Middle East, not least the Libyan conflict. The impacts, moreover, could be quite pronounced given the possibility that (...)
Last month Georgiy Borisenko presented his credentials to President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi as Moscow's ambassador to Egypt. Except for a period in the 1970s, Cairo and Moscow have enjoyed stable, and at times very close, relations since they were (...)
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem and visiting Ali Asghar Khaji, senior assistant to the Iranian foreign minister, highlighted on Monday the rapid development in the strategic relations between the two countries.
The development in the (...)
Multiple factors lead to the turmoil in Lebanon -- threats and intimidation by Israel, civil unrest, political siege, sanctions and economic and financial duress, in a failed attempt to blackmail the country, bring it to its knees, instigate (...)
On Gouraud Street in the gentrified Jemmayzeh neighbourhood of Beirut, now entirely reduced to rubble, a distraught Lebanese woman appealed to French President Emmanuel Macron during his visit to the city last week.
“I want to go back to my home,” (...)
More and more museums and other institutions worldwide have been putting resources online for people to access during the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic.
At a time when it is advisable to leave the house as little as possible and then only for (...)
Lebanon will suffer from the wounds of the massive Beirut explosion for decades to come, and so will its immediate neighbour Syria. But in the short term, the regime led by Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad looks set to garner benefits from it.
Syria (...)
In Iraq's oil-rich south, the scorching summer months pose painful new choices in the age of the coronavirus: stay at home in the sweltering heat with electricity cut off for hours, or go out and risk the virus.
This is Zain al-Abidin's predicament. (...)
